For Tonight, You're Only Here to Know
by shawn-n-belle
Summary: When Spencer Hastings returned to her childhood home after her college graduation,the last thing she expected to see was the back of a camouflage coat with the name of the person she loved the most in the world scrawled on the back. The person who was declared MIA nearly two years ago. AU S6B
Rosewood, Pennsylvania.

If one did not have relatives living there, or had been remotely tuned into the news for the past decade, no-one would ever know that it existed. It had been a small, quaint town, in which everyone knew everyone and somehow that had simply been okay. It had been a town described in the pages of literature as one of the most perfect places on earth. Dusty old diners, changing leaves, and a few stoplights here and there.

It had been _home._

Well, that was until Allison DiLaurentis went missing.

Then she was dead.

Except she wasn't.

Then six teenage girls were held underground in a dollhouse for days.

Oh, and a new DiLaurentis appeared.

He actually _could have_ been dead.

Except, oh right, he _wasn't._

Because death is just too overrated in Rosewood anyways.

Honestly, four years later and the concept still causes Spencer Hastings head to hurt. Four years of law school, politics, and living in Washington, DC and Spencer still couldn't wrap her mind around everything that happened to her during her years of high school. Some people would argue that it only made her stronger; but Spencer argues otherwise.

It had been those years of torment that lead Aria to therapy, Hanna into her fits of binge drinking, Alison to forever be haunted by the bitter truth, and Emily to join the military right after graduation.

That had been the thing that surprised Spencer the most. Well, besides Charles being _Charlotte_ , of course.

Emily. The girl who had a scholarship to the best school in California, the girl who had watched the love of her life die before her very eyes, the girl who used to cry herself to sleep at night because her father was worlds away fighting for his life- had joined the military.

No consultation. No goodbyes. No anything.

One day she was there and the next, Pam Fields is telling her that she's in basic.

The last time Spencer had heard from her was three years ago when a wrinkled letter showed up at her apartment with the words I'm sorry scribbled across them. No return address. No name. Just sand and smudged ink.

There had been a phone call a few weeks mirror to that, something about ' _Hello'_ and _'Spencer'_ was muttered into the phone static, but honestly, the signal was entirely too bad to decipher much from the conversation. And in all fairness? Spencer really just didn't _care_ .

After everything they had been through, Emily had disappeared. She had pulled an Allison. Except, unlike their blonde haired, bitch of a best friend, Emily had actually disappeared somewhere where she may very well get blown up. Despite the fact that they had survived not one, but _two_ A's just simply had not been enough- no, the girl had decide to fly half way across the world, into a desert, to risk being shot at. And then, something like **that** fucking happens to her.

How could she be so fucking _stupid_?

So, she tried to forget her. Truly. Spencer had tried her damnedest to forget everything about Emily Fields. After all, Aria was away in New York, becoming author and editor of the year. Hanna was busy producing one of the major fashion lines in the world, and was nearly a billionaire with Caleb following suit as one of the top rising agents in the CIA. All of her friends had moved on and Spencer just wanted to _forget_.

So, she tried for a while. Drinks after six o'clock, parties every night, she joined the lobbyist movement, helped her mother with her campaign for governor, there was even a few miscalculated judgement when something went into her nose, and she smoked something that tasted like an old cigarette. She tried to forget _Emily_ , she tried to forget _Rosewood_ , because she knew that she had to escape. She had to escape the nightmares, the constant worriment, the constant viewing of the CNN to see if there had been any American causalities that day. She had to escape the fear of losing the people that she cared about, because first, A happened, then CeCe happened, and then Isis, she couldn't keep going this way. She had to _escape_.

So perhaps that is why, early one June, Spencer Hastings finds herself back in Rosewood, walking up the driveway to her old childhood home- the home that her parents no longer live in, but refuse to put on the market in case she or Melissa ever decide to have children. She finds herself back in Rosewood because it is all that she has ever known- the trauma, the tragedy, the family, the love, despite whatever situation that she may have left the place in, it was still her _home_. And with Aria away in New York, and Hanna busy traveling the world, Toby off doing God knows what (their break up hadn't exactly been the easiest) and with Emily... well...

Spencer swallows the reality, _hard_ , with a twist of fingers in her hair. She remembers the day that she had gotten the phone call from Pam Fields. It had been disgruntled with a lot of sobbing, and Spencer, who was in the middle of the library, had to piece together the words 'guerrilla warfare', 'Emily', and 'Missing in Action'. She wasn't exactly declared dead, but the MIA was a death sentence in it's own. There had been no funeral, no service, but Pam Fields still has the stupid yellow ribbon hanging from her tree, and a variety of gift baskets and photos of her beloved daughter still appear randomly in her driveway. Despite everything they had overcame, _everyone_ they had survived, Emily had went Missing in Action during a desert attempt of a guerrilla warfare.

Emily was _gone_.

And Spencer couldn't... Spencer didn't get a chance to...

 **Fuck!**

The brunette slams her hand against the front door of her house, the tears blinding in her eyes. Choking back the cry, she turns the door knob and the house eerily opens to reveal everything just as she had left it. It was simply as if her parents went to work one day and simply chose to not come home. The photos still remained carefully placed on the wall, the furniture still remained sitting exactly where the designer her mother paid thousands of dollars for had placed them. There was still a scuff mark on the hardwood floor where she and Emily came tumbling in one night, after Emily was belligerently drunk, and Spencer made her strip right there in the middle of the living room.

 _Emily_.

Biting her bottom lip, Spencer shakes her head as she forces the cry down the back of her throat. Instead, she grabs the keys from off the coffee table and begins to bounce up the stairs- the same stairs that she chased Allison down the night that she went missing. She watches as the photos appear on the wall before her, photos of her parents wedding, Melissa when she was a baby, Spencer, their childhood together, Melissa's graduation, and then Spencer's. They had been the picture perfect family- so much so that Spencer would have never guessed her father had a son by the next door neighbor, or even better, that her father knew of Charles before the rest of the world had. She stops for a moment, allowing her fingers to linger on the photo of Spencer with the girls, they were barely older than twelve in the photo, all smiling bright and happy.

It had been before Allison went missing, before Emily was missing, before their world had been ripped away from them so quickly.

If she knew that what she knew now, she'd do a lot of things differently, she sighs.

Pushing forward, she finds the doorknob to her old bedroom without a struggle and forces it open. Inside, everything was as she had left it before moving to college. The boxes of clothes still sit at the edge of her closet, her bed still perfectly made from the morning before, her mountain of notebooks and books still lined the desk from the summer assignments she had given herself before college began. Sighing contently, she falls onto her bed with a plop, gently running her fingers through her hair when her eyes spot an elephant.

Smiling, she reaches across the bed to take the stuffed animal within her hands. She remembers the day that she got this, or rather, the day that Emily _surprised_ her with this. She had caught the flu from Toby, who was nearly hospitalized from the illness, and Spencer, stubbornly, refused to go to the doctor. She was taking her _SATS_ that weekend, and she knew that if the doctors quarantined her, there was no way that her early college applications could go through. So, instead, she laid in her bed, with her book before her, and a box of tissues, and studied, even when she should have been sleeping. So, rather than letting her suffer alone, despite the fact that Veronica had quarantined her, Emily climbed the tree outside of Spencer's room and brought her the elephant. Something about how ' _This way you'll never be alone and a part of me can always be here with you.'_ Spencer could have kissed her that moment, but with the flu and all, she chose not to.

Yeah, that's why she chose not to.

Sighing, she traces the outline of the elephant as the tears blind in her eyes.

' _A part of me can always be with you'_

Emily.

' _A part of me can always be with you'_

Until she's gone.

' _A part of me can always be with you'_

"YOU CANT BE WITH ME IF YOU'RE FUCKING DEAD, EMILY!" Spencer screams, throwing the elephant across the room and into her vanity, where it bounces before hitting the floor. She wasn't aware that she was crying until she was sobbing; and she wasn't aware that she was sobbing until the bile was rising in her throat, her chest was tightening, and her lungs entirely forgot how to work. She wasn't aware that she was having a break down until she already _broke_.

"A part of me will always be with you, Spencer." A voice called out and Spencer's head immediately shot up, trying to find the source of the noise through all the tears that currently soaked her face. She blinked, and blinked, and _blinked_ again, but it was too no avail.

"Welcome home," The person whispered, and when Spencer finally could open her eyes, she could barely make out a camouflage jacket before her, covering the most gorgeous tan skin that she has ever seen in her life.

"Emily?"

And the next thing she knows, there's a pair of lips on hers.

Emily's kissing her.

And Spencer's kissing back.

But Emily should be missing?

Or dead?

Or fuck, Spencer's head pounds as her lips dance against the warm pair that nearly swallow hers whole. It's a matter of seconds, because as quick as it begins, it's over.

And then suddenly, Spencer's whole world is painted a dark shade of **black**.


End file.
